1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to communication systems, and more particularly, to displaying information on communication devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Modern communication systems facilitate communication of information in many forms and between various communication devices (e.g., computers, wireless terminals or devices, cellular telephones, pagers, personal digital assistants, etc.). Given the popularity of modern communication systems, extensive efforts have been made by a number of entities to provide users with the ability to access information on demand. As such, users can use a variety of handheld communication devices to access information. Users may, for example, access information which is available on the Internet or on a remote private database. Typically, handheld communication devices have a relatively small amount of display space available in comparison to desktop devices (e.g., a personal desktop computer). Accordingly, for handheld communication devices, it is highly desirable to use the relatively small amount of display space in an efficient manner.
Unfortunately, conventional techniques fail to use the display space in an efficient manner. To illustrate, FIG. 1A depicts a conventional communication device 10 with an associated display 12. The conventional communication device 10 includes a numerical pad 14 and soft keys 16 and 18. Referring now to FIG. 1B, the display unit 12 in FIG. 1A is shown in greater detail. The display unit 12 is partitioned into portions 20, 22 and 24. In operation, the display unit 12 can be used to display content information (e.g., text relating to a document) as well as labels (e.g., functional labels or contextual labels). The content information is displayed in the display portion 24 and labels are displayed in display portions 20 and 22.
As shown in FIG. 1B, a contextual label, namely, a title, is displayed in the display portion 20. The title displayed in the display portion 20 provides contextual information for the text displayed in the display portion 24. In other words, the title displayed in display portion 20 is the title for the document (or portion of the document) that is displayed at the display portion 24. While functional labels 30 and 32 displayed at display portion 22 respectively correspond to labels for soft keys SF1 16 and SF2 18, these functional labels can, for example, be used to identify various functions (e.g., OK, Cancel) which are respectively provided by the soft keys SF1 16 and SF2 18 at any given time.
One serious drawback with the conventional display 12 is that display portions 20, 22 are reserved to display only labels. In other words, conventional displaying techniques typically don't allow content to be displayed in display portions 20 and 22. In fact, contextual and/or functional labels can be constantly displayed in display portion 20 and 22 regardless of the situation. In any case, only a limited area of the display 12 (i.e., display portion 24) can be used to display content information since the display portions 20 and 22 are always reserved to display labels. In devices with relatively small viewing areas, this deficiency is a serious drawback.
Accordingly, there is a need for improved displaying techniques.